The conservation of parrots is an active undertaking with many components including study, experimentation, training, and more than a few other tricks to help further declining populations of birds in the wild. And with all this work, you’d hope that the population of rare parrots would be proliferating heartily. Sadly, that’s not the case in most situations. More than a few birds require unique adherence to a distinct set of environmental “rules.” When those “rules begin to deteriorate for the variety of reasons that they do, the birds find it a difficult experience.
One such population is the red-fronted macaw, of which there are less than 300 accounted for in the wild. With their incredibly small range in a desert-like location in the medium altitudinal mountains of Bolivia, these macaws faces extinction if the species doesn’t procreate at a faster rate. The climate is cold at night but warm in the daytime. The birds nest in fissures on the face of the mountain. Interestingly (and adding to the problem), these macaws are the only parrots known to inhabit a climate like the one they live in.
Unique & Endangered Macaws
The red-fronted macaw is a beautiful bird that is largely green but has a red-colored forehead with a red patch over the ears. They also have red or orange colors on their wings, and the rest of the upper part of the wing is a vibrant blue. There is a patch of red on their legs just above their feet, and they have long, blue-green tail feathers. They are around 25” inches in length.
Twycross Zoo, a large zoo located in England, has recently acquired a pair of these birds in the hope that the pair will “fall in love” with each other and find sufficient reason to mate. The birds were moved to Twycross; one from Edinburgh Zoo and the other from Welsh Mountain Zoo as part of a carefully planned conservation effort to encourage the pair to mate. Easy, you say? Not so fast.
The male macaw was the only of his kind to hatch at Edinburgh Zoo. He arrived last year and was the first to hatch for more than 15 years. Interestingly, the current zoo bird curator for Twycross was working at the Edinburgh Zoo when the bird hatched. This is an exciting moment for the curator as well as the zoo. The hope is that the birds will produce more of their kind. The plan is to help replenish the dwindling population of one of the world’s most threatened species.
Keep your fingers crossed as the pair begins to adapt to one another and possibly bring more of these macaws to the world’s stage.